IX. "Honor the Lord with thy substance, and give Him of the first of all thy fruits."

Proverbs, iii, 9

On fire with the desire to emulate the seraphic ardor of the Patriarch of Assisi and immeasurably strengthened to carry out her holy intention by her visit to La Verna, Anna Maria courageously began her preparations for final and complete separation from her parents. Kneeling beside her sick mother's bed she lovingly asked her blessing. Signora Redi, weeping at the thought of her material loss, blessed her little daughter.

During the journey to Florence Anna Maria seemed calm and serene. "Without letting her see me," her father tells us in the Canonical Process for her Beatification, "I watched her closely, and saw that she was quiet, composed, and thoughtful. Thus she remained for an hour or so, when she regained her usual cheerful manner. She turned towards me and started a sensible and friendly conversation. She finished the trip as tranquilly as she had started it."

The poor young girl! On that day she had had more than one battle to fight. It wrenched her heart to leave her dear mother forever. After God and Our Lady, her loving mother was responsible for what she knew of good solid piety, of earnestness in religion, of contempt for this world. Her gratitude to her mother for what she had done for her in a religious way made it doubly hard to leave her, although she succeeded in not showing much emotion. Her mother's pain and grief at the thought of separation from the daughter she loved so much and for whom she had done so much were intense. How she had prayed and wept for Anna Maria! What a reward to find her grown up into such a good, pious, and virtuous girl! How glorious to think that this girl of hers, at eighteen,* was as innocent as on the day of her baptism! Now, however, when she could delight in her, make her her consolation, now that she could enjoy the fruit of her work and prayer, her little daughter was leaving her, and forever! What grief for any mother! Still, Christian fortitude had triumphed over all tender weaknesses, the mother had bowed her head to the will of God Who was calling her daughter to serve Him in Carmel, and that daughter had left home blessed a thousand times by an overflowing heart tearfully entrusted to the Lord Himself and to His Most Holy Mother.

On their arrival in Florence, father and daughter stayed with General Pandolfini for a day or so. After they had visited the nuns of Saint Apollonia's and her two sisters, Cecilia and Eleonora at school there, Anna Maria went with her father and Signora Pandolfini to the Monastery of Saint Theresa. Here she had to face separation from her father, and, although she did her best to conceal it, it was quite evident that she was in anguish at the thought of leaving him forever. The saints are not insensible to love of parents, relatives, friends. Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus puts it well when she says, "I cannot understand those saints who did not love their families!"; like this little sister of hers, the "Little Flower" of the Carmel of Lisieux, but long before her time, Anna Maria voluntarily sacrificed to God the father whom she tenderly loved. She kissed him, dropped on her knees to ask his blessing, and entered that house of angels," as she always called it, to begin her trial of the religious life. This was on September 1, 1764.

The Monastery of Saint Theresa (now used as a prison, under the same name, by the Italian Government) with its artistically and architecturally beautiful little church, stands only a short distance from the Church of Saint Ambrose, opening on the south to the street that leads to the "Porta alla Croce," on the north to the street called "Mattonaia." Its foundation through the efforts of Donna Frances Guardi of the Ugolini family dates back to 1629, that is, to the year when the Venerable Father Dominic of Jesus and Mary under the urging of Cosimo II, Arch-duke of Tuscany, had agreed to establish the Convent of Saint Paulinus. This noble woman, a devout client of our Holy Mother, Theresa, had immediately asked permission to found in her honor a church and monastery of nuns, a work that ate up the greater part of her funds and property. The Father General, who at that time was Friar Ferdinand of St. Mary, accepted the offer and wrote at once to the Reverend Mother Jerome of St. Mary, foundress of the second Carmel of Genoa, asking her to select two nuns for the foundation of the new Florentine monastery. The two religious chosen were Sister Paula of Jesus (Giustiniani) and Sister Agnes of Jesus (Lomellini). It is of interest to note here that this monastery can claim, through an unbroken chain of nuns, what amounts to foundation by Saint Theresa herself, for Mother Jerome of the Holy Spirit, who was the foundress of the Genoese Carmel, had governed, during the life-time of the Great Reformer, the monastery of Malagone for twelve years; while this mother was prioress in Genoa she gave the habit to Mother Jerome of St. Mary, who, in 1630, came to Florence to found there the Monastery of Saint Theresa. From the time of Saint Theresa to that of Saint Theresa Margaret Redi's entrance into the community there had been no break in its continuity. In fact, this community, even to our own time, has never shown any sign of physical debility. Thanks to the heroism of those nuns who courageously suffered a first exile to the Dominican Novitiate at Fiesole during Napoleon I's earliest suppression of religious, and a second for nine years, from 1866 to 1875, at Villa delle Piazzole, the descent from Saint Theresa has been unbroken. From delle Piazzole the community went to S. Matteo in Arcetri where it remained until 1896, when it took up residence in a new monastery at Bellosguardo. Forced to abandon Bellosguardo during the Great War, the Sisters took up residence finally, in 1921, in Via Bruni. There the body of Sister Mary Agnes is still resting in the nuns' choir. Through the intercession of this Servant of God, many miracles have been worked. Her "life" has been written by Father Ildephonse of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Discalced Carmelite.

The original Monastery of Saint Theresa was opened in April of 1630, amid the townspeople's triumphant acclamations. The church is hexagonal in shape, topped by a small dome, well proportioned, rising gracefully above the apse. In each angle of the hexagon there is a window of fine stained glass through which the mellow light trickles, giving the little church an air of subdued devotion. The main altar is of carved stone. On the pedestal of each of its columns two coats of arms are found, the shield and crest to the left being of the Guardi family alone, those to the right being the Guardi arms joined with heraldic devices of the Ugolini family.

There are four side altars, much like the main altar. In the sanctuary floor before the main altar there is a round opening covered with a bronze grating worked in arabesque, in the center of which is seen the foundress' coat of arms. This opening lights up a subterranean chapel built by the foundress as a tomb for herself. This chapel has a small altar dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows at which each year on the Friday of Passion Week Mass is celebrated. The foundress' body rests on the epistle side of this altar. In front of her grave there is another tomb that encloses the body of Eleonora, Duchess Strozzi, dressed in Carmelite habit. Among the other monuments worth remembering is that of the Princess Violante Beatrice of Bavaria whose body is buried in a niche on the gospel side.

Such were the Monastery and Church of Saint Theresa that Anna Maria had entered to begin her religious life, and, as Monsignor Bougaud observes in his history of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, the "God Who has not reared a mountain, levelled a valley, or cut a river without knowing for what people and for what souls He was laboring," assuredly must have had Anna Maria in mind when He allowed this monastery to be built. Her life from the very beginning of her brief stay in this house of God was of a nature to arouse the admiration of the fervent religious; them she revered as angels of God; she protested that she was unworthy of their company; she set herself to follow their example in every way; she pledged herself to a rigid observance of the Holy Rule and of the particular customs of that monastery. She had begun a new era of life. Her heart was like a hymn to the Heart of Jesus, lifting itself to Him without ceasing, uniting itself to Him always more closely, offering itself to Him as a perpetual holocaust of love.

During those first days she experienced the greatest contentment on receiving Venerable Father John of Jesus and Mary's "Cloister Discipline," a booklet that traces the easiest way of dedicating and directing every monastic act, even the most indifferent, to the honor and glory of God, and of performing each act with the greatest perfection solely to please God. Father Ildephonse, Anna Maria's confessor, tells us how surprised she was to discover from her reading of this little book that from her childhood she had been following monastic customs, somewhat indeterminately, naturally. She became attached to the book, and always felt that in it, in conjunction with the "Rule and Constitutions" and the "Instruction to Novices," there was everything that could teach a Discalced Carmelite to perfect all her acts solely to please God. She learned by heart all the formulas of direction found in the little volume and strove to apply them both mentally and vocally with the greatest exactness, so as to mould herself into the religious life with the greater ease. The impression the book made upon her can be seen from the fact that although in her last days all the ascetic writers failed to drive dryness and coldness wholly from her spirit she never failed to find consolation and even satisfaction in reading "Cloister Discipline."

Obedience, mortification, self-abnegation, prayer, silence, retirement, charity in her association with others, these were the flowers opening into full bloom from her love of Jesus, these were the remarkable spiritual gifts which drew to her the love and admiration of the religious, who saw in her a nun already far advanced on the road to perfection, even, as Monsignor Albergotti writes, "an angel of light and a vase of singular election." The idea that she had conceived, on her entrance into the monastery, that both monastery and nuns were supremely holy, bred in her the thought that she herself was base and lowly, with the result that there were no humble duties which she would not, at any cost, seek to prevent the others from performing, that she herself might do them. Absolutely buried in a sense of deep humility, she saw in herself only defects while the nuns were for her so many saints, "worthy" to use her own words, "of becoming canonized," living in a "house of angels" where she herself was unworthy to live.

It is the general custom in all Carmels to grant postulants, for 8 days, a longer period for rest than the nuns receive and to dispense them from following some of the exercises, particularly the more rigorous, such as fasting, mortification, the discipline. This considerate leniency displeased Anna Maria who desired to take up the Carmelite life at once in all its rigor. To this purpose she made such a strong plea to the Mother Prioress that, although the superior disliked departing from any of Saint Theresa's wise provisions, Anna Maria was allowed after a short time to follow the rule almost without mitigation. This observance she undertook with such fervor, ease, readiness, and joy as to appear to be a nun thoroughly used to this severe sort of life.

In these days of postulantship Anna Maria made such progress in mental prayer that even the most spiritually advanced among the nuns were astounded. Mother Anna Maria of St. Anthony of Padua (Piccolomini), then assistant Mistress of Novices, tells us how one evening at Matins she seemed to be particularly recollected. Her face was all lighted up, and her eyes shone with a quiet joy which she could not conceal. The good Mother was certain that these were evidences of some extraordinary exaltation, proof that something out of the ordinary had happened to her spiritually. When the Office was finished, she went to the cell of the Servant of God, to ask her what had happened, but the humble young girl replied rather evasively that "the recitation of the Office demanded all one's attention, and that the omission of a single word could give the devil a chance to debit one with the defect in the sight of God." The wise Mother, however, felt certain that Anna Maria said this little merely to please her, and that, actually, during Office she had received some extraordinary, interior light on the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. In all probability, when she was lifting her mind and heart to God, to thank Him for all the sweetness and joy she was now experiencing, the Lord had borne her onward to the vision of that heavenly loveliness that brings the light of glory to the face of those who love Him.

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*  All other sources state that Anna Maria was seventeen when she left home for the convent.  [webmaster].